Rumours of JiaYu’s demise have been surfacing and resurfacing for some time, but today’s release of the JiaYu S3+ means the company are still in business. Cast your minds back to the start of the year and JiaYu released the then flagship JiaYu S3 phone. Their first all plastic bodied flagship device ever, and a phone that boasted a Mediatek MT6752 chipset, 3GB RAM and a decent camera.

After the JiaYu S3 the company when quiet, the brand was restructured and the rumours of the factory doors closing for good (like iOcean) began.

Today though, our normally quiet contact at JiaYu was online and told us to expect their new JiaYu S3+ model in the post. As the name suggests the JiaYu S3+ is based on the old S3 but with a few slight changes.

The JiaYu S3+ costs 859 Yuan and will come with 3GB RAM as standard now (the previous model came in 2GB RAM and 3GB RAM versions). The MT6752 chipset (which we believe Mediatek are no longer producing) has been replaced with the octacore MT6753 running at 1.5Ghz.

A Sony IMX214 rear camera takes photos at 13 mega-pixels with a large F2.0 aperture. This is the same set up as the Oppo Find 7, which even by today’s standards has a capable camera.

The 8.9mm body is plastic again with 3000mAh battery, 5.5-inch FHD Corning Gorilla Glass display and 16GB internal memory. A front 5 mega-pixel Samsung sensor with F2.4 aperture is in charge of selfies and the phone comes with dual SIM cards and LTE support (B3 B7 B20).

Other features include NFC, OTG, dual stereo speakers and Android 5.1 out of the box. So JiaYu are still in business and we will be reviewing the JiaYu S3+ very soon! Keep posted.